You know… there is nothing more tempting than a locked door, especially the one at my grandmother’s house. Of course, she tells me to never to go near it. And I’ve always been really good about that rule until five days ago.
I don’t know what came over me. I told her I was going to watch TV in her bedroom, but instead I inched towards the forbidden door assuming that all that was behind it were breakable things she didn’t want me to mess with. Meaning no harm, I peered through the key hole.
Pitch black.
“The lights are just off,” I said aloud reassuring myself. I could feel my heartbeat beginning to rise, beating faster and faster by the minute. I pulled out my lock pick wires (yes, I know how to pick a lock), my hands shaking. Click! I was in.
The lights weren’t turned off at all. Behind the door was a long, white corridor with a single black door at the end of it. How is this possible? Grandmother’s house isn’t big enough to have a hallway this long. Impulsively, I stepped into it. As soon as I was all the way in, whoosh, the door behind me vanished.
• • •
“Oh my – Oh my Gosh!” I screamed. It felt as if I was having a panic attack, but suddenly my body overflowed with the sensation of calmness. I then realized that an old man’s voice was speaking to me. I listened.
“Calm yourself, girl! There is no need to be afraid. My, my! You haven’t changed a bit! It’s been, what, 80 revolutions? Welcome back, Alice…” The voice faded to nothing.
“Alice? But, my name’s Gracie!” I replied as I whirled around expecting to find the mysterious speaker, but saw nothing. I began to inspect the hallway walls looking for a way out.
“Ha!” I blurted. With all the excitement, I had forgotten about the enormous black door that ended the hall! I started towards it. Once there, I reached for the door knob, turned it, pulled open the surprisingly light door, and stepped through. That door vanished like the one before.
Just go with it, Gracie, I thought to myself. In front of me was what seemed to be the same long, white corridor with the same black door at the end of it. Seeing no other option, I walked on.
I must have passed through at least twenty identical hallways. My legs began to ache. It felt like I had been walking for hours! I went to check my wristwatch, which was a very expensive G-Shock, by the way.
“Huh?” It read: 4:15 PM, June 5, 2012.
Have I gone mad? That’s the exact time it was when I stepped through Grandmother’s forbidden door!
Quickly thrusting that thought to the back of my mind, I noticed something I hadn’t before. There was a bright light coming from the keyhole of the next door.
“This is it. It has to be,” I said hopefully. I slowly opened what I hoped would be my last door and walked through as it disappeared.
My jaw dropped.
Before me was a huge, circular room filled with one hundred grand doors, which each looked like they were sucked out of a different place in time: ancient Egypt, ancient Rome, the Italian Renaissance …
“Irony,” I said plainly.
There was one door in particular that caught my eye – let’s just say that I’m naturally drawn to the weird things. It was smaller than the others and looked like it had been through some really rough times. Its light green paint was seriously chipped, its door knob was nearly falling out, and it hung at an odd angle on its hinges.
Hmm, which door would my grandmother pick? The odd one, of course! She always tells me, “He who seems he has gone mad, knows he is the one with his wits.”
I ran to the pitiful door and jiggled its crystal knob. SNAP! The entire door broke off its hinges and slammed into the stone floor. The other side of the doorway was not another hallway or room, thank God. It opened up into a forest, but not just any forest. It looked dead: dry wood, no animals, and not a single leaf on the trees. Like usual, the door and the circular room left me as I stepped into the forest.
I trekked through the lifeless wood for what may have been about ten minutes. My watch was still frozen. I tapped its face to see if the numbers would move. That was obviously useless.
DING…DING…DING…
“Who’s there?” I yelled.
DING…DING…DING…
The noise got louder and louder as I walked. I then came upon a long dinner table that was covered with cracked plates and cups, cobwebs, and rotten food. The noise was a broken music box that was stuck on one note; but who could possibly be here to wind it up?
All the chairs at the table were empty, except the one at the head. Upon it lay an abnormally decorated top hat and a note.